Howdy readers! After a well-deserved break, we return to our program with a topic for the ages: how to treat yourself with good intentions.
What do I mean by that?
Well, you know how when you fail at something, your mind is automatically telling you that now you don’t deserve that holiday - or that night off?
Or, when you get a bad report at work say, then you feel so bad that you think that you need to work extra hard on your next project?
Or, someone does something nice for you - like buy you a coffee or lunch. And you think that you must do something to compensate for that good deed.
Does any of this sound familiar?
It happens to me when my partner spends a whole day with our daughter while I catch up on my online courses and write this substack and then I feel like I owe him.
As if we were not co-parenting, it would be just my job to spend time with her.
Well, all of these circumstances are you NOT treating yourself with good intentions.
It’s like the overarching storyline in your mind is that you must earn the good and always repay the bad.
Have you ever considered that? The fact that most of the time you don’t expect good things to come to you?
Or do you expect things to be hard for you and work hard for them?
Or that you must never let a bad deed unpunished?
It’s like if you got a bad grade in school but you still got to eat the ice cream then this would be incoherent.
So how do you treat yourself with good intentions?
Well, just spend one minute thinking about what I just wrote above.
How many times have you tried to compensate for something good happening, even though nobody asked you?
How did that feel?
Is that a game that you can win?
Will you ever become as valuable that you must never compensate?
Treating yourself with good intentions means that you think of yourself a person who wants to do good.
And has good intentions.
You don’t have to keep yourself on a tight leash all the time.
What would your life look like if you behaved like you were a good person?